Biden appeals for no delay in Mideast peace talks

"The most important thing is for these talks to go forward and go forward promptly and go forward in good faith," Biden said in a speech at Tel Aviv University. "We can't delay because when progress is postponed, extremists exploit our differences."

Israel's announcement this week, during Biden's visit, of plans to build 1,600 settler homes in an area of the occupied West Bank it annexed to Jerusalem, cast a shadow over U.S. efforts to relaunch Middle East peacemaking.

The decision embarrassed Biden, who said it undermined peace efforts, and infuriated the West Bank-based Palestinian leadership, which had agreed to a U.S. proposal for indirect talks under pressure from Washington and its Arab allies.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa on Wednesday he had decided not to enter the talks for now. The Arab League had endorsed a four-month framework for the U.S.-mediated negotiations.

"The Palestinian side is not ready to negotiate under the present circumstances," Moussa said in Cairo.

An aide to Abbas said the Palestinians wanted U.S. pressure on Israel to reverse the settlement expansion decision, which Israeli officials said was badly timed, but would not be cancelled.

"What is required is that when (U.S. envoy George) Mitchell comes back ... he is supposed to succeed in revoking the Israeli settlement decisions in East Jerusalem in order to give an opportunity to launch the indirect talks," said the aide, Nabil Abu Rdainah.

ISRAELI ASSURANCES

In his speech, Biden gave no sign Washington would press Israel to cancel the project. Instead, he said he had been assured by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that construction at the site, a religious Jewish settlement, would not start for years.